Money Manners: How should hotel-room cost be divided?

Two of my co-workers frequently travel together. One usually brings her husband, while the other travels solo. To save on expenses, the co-workers often share a room, with the husband and wife sleeping in one bed and the solo traveler in the other. The solo traveler feels the tab should be divided three ways, since there are three of them. I think it should be divided two ways, since there are two beds. Who's right?

Money Talks, Northern Ontario

Dear Money:

If splitting the tab is the biggest problem that's arisen from this arrangement, our hats are off to the travelers.

Since employers almost always pick up the travel expenses of their employees, we're guessing that these co-workers of yours either are vacationing together or own the business on whose behalf they are traveling (i.e., the travel expenses are, in effect, coming out of their own pockets). If the trio is on vacation, the expenses should be split three ways, since that's how many people are enjoying the trip, not to mention sharing the bathroom.

If the trips are for business, the expenses still should be split three ways, but for a different reason. While it's not costing the business any more to have the husband stay in the room, his presence necessarily lessens the comfort and intrudes on the privacy of the owner who's traveling solo. Hence it's unreasonable to expect her to pay half of the tab, especially when her fellow owner is getting a benefit from the room that's unrelated to the business purpose of the trip.

Dear Jeanne & Leonard:

I'm a widower with two children in their 40s. I would like to purchase the mortgages on their homes, and I'd like to do it without their knowledge, because I fear that otherwise, at the first sign of financial problems, my kids would - quite correctly - assume that they could postpone paying me. So, assuming I can get the banks that hold their mortgages to sell them to me but continue to service them, what do you think of my plan? I think my kids and their families would be a lot better off if I held their mortgages instead of some bank.

M.D., Arkansas

Dear M.D.:

How would your children be better off? If you're expecting them to pay you just as they would the bank, there's no advantage to them. On the other hand, if your goal is to protect the families from foreclosure, you don't need to own their mortgages to do so. You can simply help with the payments if the need arises.

And what if your children discover that you secretly bought their mortgages (a not-unlikely scenario)? You've identified one problem this could lead to: They feel a lesser obligation to pay. Here are two more: They resent paying interest to their father, and they resent that their father went behind their backs to become their creditor.

You're trying to do a nice thing here, and we'd like to be more encouraging. But we see no upside to your plan, only trouble.

Dear Jeanne & Leonard:

Over my strong objection, my husband insisted on investing $100,000 in a friend-of-a-friend's business - a business that quickly failed. A few months later he left me for another woman. We're now dividing up our assets in anticipation of getting divorced, and I feel I shouldn't have to absorb the loss on a stupid investment that was entirely his idea. Am I right?

Mary, Greater Toronto area

Dear Mary:

Suppose that instead of losing $100,000, you and your husband had made $100,000 on that investment. Should he get to keep the entire gain because you were dead set against the deal? Of course not. So just as you'd have been entitled to 50 percent of the gain, you're stuck with 50 percent of the loss. ... Sorry.